


to feel awake while dreaming

by sepulcher



Category: SK8 the Infinity (Anime)
Genre: Acts of Service as a Love Language, Anxiety, Coping Mechanisms, Episode 9, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, Injury, M/M, not necessarily unhealthy ones though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-23 03:14:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30049053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sepulcher/pseuds/sepulcher
Summary: “No excessive physical exertion for at least a month,” the doctor said.In the most dramatic sense, it felt like a death sentence.
Relationships: Nanjo Kojiro | Joe/Sakurayashiki Kaoru | Cherry Blossom
Comments: 9
Kudos: 270





	to feel awake while dreaming

**Author's Note:**

> disclaimer: a lot of this is taken from my own personal experience with injuries. no beta per usual.

“No excessive physical exertion for at least a month,” the doctor said.

In the most dramatic sense, it felt like a death sentence. In a far more logical sense, it felt along the lines of bitter disappointment intermingled with frustration and misplaced anger towards the physician for giving him the news that he had expected, therefore there wasn’t any need to be especially distraught about it. Or so common sense said.

“A whole month? Are you sure?” bargaining as a step of grief. Not that Kaoru was undergoing an actual grieving process about not being able to skateboard for a month, but the idea of not being able to step on his board for so long made his heart race and his anxiety spike.

The doctor fixed him with a stern, almost disapproving look, though Kaoru wouldn’t be cowed: he stared back with a relatively neutral expression, fingers laced in his lap. “I am certain, Sakurayashiki. Your concussion will take at least a week to resolve and with your ankle injury, your arm injury, and your fractured ribs, you shouldn’t be straining yourself for some time, and you may need physical therapy in the end.”

Kaoru’s mouth thinned. He, childishly, wanted to argue, even though he knew perfectly well that there was no room for argument here. He had injured himself more severely than he had in his life, and while in the past he would’ve been able to bounce back from a minor ankle sprain or one of the many cuts and bruises that he had gotten in his life, his jaw still hurt fiercely, breathing was uncomfortable, and walking around would be difficult enough at this point. So instead he said, “Understood.”

That stern look shifted into something more sympathetic a moment later and the doctor reached out to squeeze his shoulder bracingly. “Take some time to rest, Sakurayashiki, your body really went through the wringer here. You should be able to return to work within a few days if you feel up to it, but don’t go pushing yourself.”

“Alright,” Kaoru said around a sigh, giving the physician a tight smile. “Thank you, doctor.”

“Of course. Here is your script for painkillers, and shall I escort you out?”

When they entered the waiting room again, Kojiro met his gaze from where he was leaning against the wall across the room. He gave Kaoru a smile, which he wasn’t wholly enthused about returning, along with a jaunty wave.

“Thank you again, doctor,” Kaoru said quickly before wheeling himself over to Kojiro, and then beyond to the elevator. He could hear Kojiro thanking the doctor as well before jogging after him and meeting him just in time for the elevator to arrive, and they entered alongside a few other people who had come to see varying healthcare professionals that day.

“You didn’t have to wait for me,” his level of frustration wasn’t actually warranted, for once, though Kaoru still did nothing to hide nor abate it.

“You hate going to appointments,” Kojiro said with a sideways glance at Kaoru, “I was here for moral support and to make sure that you actually went.”

That was true, though Kaoru hated to admit it. Kojiro had all but escorted him here to the hospital to get a final say on several of his injuries alongside some actual painkillers. It had been a mistake to fall asleep at  _ Sialaluce _ the previous night, therefore enabling Kojiro to force him to return to the hospital whether he liked it or not, but there hadn’t been anywhere else that Kaoru wished to go at the time but to Kojiro’s side. He tried not to analyze that especially closely, chalking it up to the painkillers making his mind somewhat fuzzy at the time, but in truth he knew that Kojiro was one of the few people in the world that he trusted implicitly.

“I’m not a child, you imbecile,” Kaoru switched out his glasses for his prescription sunglasses as they exited the hospital, barely holding back a complaint about his light sensitivity out of sheer pride alone. “You don’t need to coddle me.”

“You could’ve fooled me,” Kojiro was grinning, Kaoru could see it in his periphery, and it was only the fact that his Carla wheelchair couldn’t maneuver quite well enough to roll sideways and over Kojiro’s toes that stopped him from doing as much, though he glared at him venomously all the same. “So, what’s the verdict?”

Kaoru was tempted not to tell him, because he knew that the moment he did, Kojiro would do everything feasibly within his power to ensure that he followed the doctor’s orders. On the other hand, Kojiro would leave him well enough alone if he didn’t tell him at all. “A month,” the words were ground between his teeth more than spoken.

Kojiro winced sympathetically, the bastard. “Ouch. Sorry, Kaoru.”

“I don’t need apologies from a brainless idiot like you,” Kaoru was, shockingly, aware that taking out his anger on Kojiro wasn’t at all fair, but he was the only person or thing that he could take out his anger on, save Carla, and given that the AI was in charge of his wheelchair, it was easier to externalize his anger on his childhood friend. Unfair, but.

Kojiro made an irritated noise, “In care you forgot, this brainless idiot is helping you out.”

“I didn’t ask for your help,” oh it was infuriating just how much he felt like a child in this moment. But, he supposed that he was acting like one through and through.

“You asked for it by coming to my restaurant last night rather than going home,” Kojiro stepped in front of his path in order to fixate him with a look that Kaoru had seen him give his twin little sisters hundreds of times before when they were being dangerous kids. He didn’t even have the sense to wince when the wheelchair ran directly into his shins. Muscular idiot. “You’re terrible at taking care of yourself, so someone has to.”

“Like you’re any better,” Kaoru maneuvered around Kojiro, though he made sure to drive over his foot as best as he could anyways. Kojiro  _ did _ react this time, wincing at the weight placed on his toes. “Last time you injured yourself you were on your skateboard again within days when you only had to be off for a week.”

“Yeah, and you nagged me about it until I stopped!”

“I didn’t nag you!”

“Oh, you definitely did,” Kojiro caught up to him again, “it was cute, but thoroughly annoying.”

They argued louder than was necessarily publicly polite as they wove their way through the city streets, slowed by the fact that Kaoru could hardly be expected to drive his motorcycle at the moment with a wrecked arm and an injured leg, meaning that they had to walk to the hospital to begin with, anyways. It was still fairly early in the morning, parts of the city still asleep or just waking up, and they received stares as they argued down the street until they reached Kaoru’s apartment, which Kaoru entered alone, taking the elevator up to his floor after saying that his headache had just gotten worse and he desperately wanted sleep, after Kojiro had woken him up at hour intervals last night to ensure that he wouldn’t slip into a coma.

Within the dark silence of his apartment Kaoru found it, briefly, easier to sleep. He remained in the entrance for several minutes, trying to decide if his pain had reached levels that required painkillers quite yet, before he sighed gently, switching back to his proper glasses, “Carla, lights on twenty percent.” The lights faded in above him as he directed the wheelchair further into the apartment, pausing in the kitchen for want of a glass of water, only to find himself glaring upwards towards the cabinets where he kept his glasses.

Standing would be a bad idea. He could shift around on one leg without bothering the other terribly, and that leg would be back in more proper mobile condition within a week if he were lucky, but his chances of falling over were significantly greater. Luckily there was a clean glass in his drying rack, but it was dawning on Kaoru quickly that nearly nothing in his apartment was wheelchair accessible. Of course.

Just another frustration to add onto his growing mountain, truly.

Perhaps it was silly to be distressed by being limited in physical activities. Skateboarding was his primary hobby, the thing that he did out of sheer passion alone, whereas calligraphy was his career and technology was his escapism, which also happened to make him money on the side. Kaoru had loved skateboarding ever since he was a young child, and the concept of being without it for such a long span of time was genuinely terrible —— it felt over dramatic and ridiculous to even think about being unable to cope without being able to skateboard for a month, but it was simply the truth.

Skateboarding had been his escape when he was a child and his sense of freedom as an adolescent. It was a dangerous folly, one that he had been injured as a result of too many times to genuinely count, though nothing nearly as bad as this time. Certainly he had sprained his ankle before, hurt his wrist, gotten a concussion or two, but the combination of injuries alongside fractured ribs and immense pain in his jaw, deep in the bone and from the lacerations on his face, meant that he felt exhausted. He felt like he had gotten hit with an oncoming truck.

Or as if he had been smacked in the face with a skateboard going eighty kilometers per hour. Surely those things were at least marginally equivalent.

A throb shot through his jaw at the memory and he realized, dimly, that his water glass was shaking in his hand. Or, rather, that his hand was shaking, and when he brought it to his mouth it clacked uncomfortably against his teeth. “Carla, play music, volume two” he set the half empty glass on the counter as she started playing jazz music quietly through the speakers that he had installed throughout his apartment, and he made his way to his sitting room only to stop again.

Instinctively he wanted to bury his face in his hands, but even brushing the right side of his face was painful, so instead he tilted his head back to stare at the ceiling in utter silence. Exhaustion was washing over him and the idea of getting into his bed of his own volition was trying, and he had designed this wheelchair to be at least relatively comfortable, and even in the absence of pain medicine he simply wanted to drop off to sleep.

Though he wasn’t tired enough to not be alarmed when he heard his door unlock and start to open.

His head ached with how quickly he wheeled around, only to be greeted with Kojiro elbowing his way through the doorway, arms laden with shopping bags from the grocery store that Kaoru knew was just around the corner of his apartment. In fact, his head ached so fiercely that the room seemed to spin for a moment and he needed to brace himself against the arm of his wheelchair with his good arm. Automatically he pressed that hand against his forehead, eyes squeezing shut as tightly as he could manage, stars seeming to burst behind his eyelids.

“What are you doing, you idiot?” he gritted out, fighting a wave of nausea that accompanied his dizziness.

“I bought groceries, genius,” he could hear Kojiro dropping them into his kitchen, then his footsteps approaching him, “you’re welcome.”

“I didn’t ask you to,” Kaoru squinted at him through his aching eyes. Kojiro looked annoyed, but it was intermingled with genuine concern that was furrowing his eyebrows and pulling his mouth into a slight frown, leagues away from genuine frustration or anger with Kaoru. “I could’ve had groceries here already, what a waste.”

“Don’t try to be contrary with me,” Kojiro said with a roll of his eyes, “I know you don’t have a good stock of groceries here. We’re getting you to bed, now, and I’m going to make something quick and easy for you to eat before I have to head to the restaurant.”

“Stop telling me what to do, you’re not my nursemaid,” Kaoru glared at Kojiro for several more moments simply to be contrary, but given his interrupted sleep and how poorly he had rested in the hospital, his bed sounded like sanctuary and he ended up wheeling himself towards it, anyways. Kojiro followed, to his utter lack of surprise, and when he stood waiting as Kaoru parked himself beside his bed, he could only stare at him incredulously. “What, are you going to put me into bed?”

“That’s the idea,” Kojiro said, stepping around and already leaning down to pick Kaoru up into his arms.

“Wh —— absolutely not, I can get into bed myself.”

“Of course you can,” impatience had started to bleed into Kojiro’s voice, the brand that was reserved specifically for Kaoru’s stubbornness, “but I’m here to help you, so I will, now stop complaining and let me help you into bed, or I’ll leave you to do it on your own.”

They stared at each other and it felt like they were teenagers again facing each other down in a battle of the wills, and were this any other occasion Kaoru would perhaps win. He was the one who was foremost dragging Kojiro into immense trouble when they were in high school, after all, though in the end it tended to be both of them encouraging each other in a bizarre, dangerous echo chamber that neither of them relented on. However, exhaustion and the knowledge that Kojiro was taking time out of his day to be here, in spite of Kaoru’s protests, won out and he relented, allowing Kojiro to carefully pick him up (apologize quietly for the pained noise that Kaoru made) and set him into the bed, pulling the sheets around him with care.

“Get to your restaurant, Kojiro,” Kaoru frowned at him from where the blankets were being carefully laid across his body, feeling thoroughly swaddled. “I can take care of myself.”

“What did I say earlier?” Kojiro gave him a small, bemused smile, but there was pain lurking in his expression. Kaoru remembered, though it was fuzzy from how much pain he had been in at the time, that Kojiro was the one who carried him out of S and got him to the hospital. Had Kaoru thanked him? He thought he had, but everything was a blur after Adam clocked him in the face with his goddamn skateboard. “You’re terrible at taking care of yourself. Hana can get stuff in the kitchen started, I told her I’d get there soon.”

“What are you, my keeper?”

“Sure,” his massive shoulders lifted and fell and Kaoru felt vaguely put out by this entire exchange, “whatever you want to call it. Get some rest, stupid,” it was said gently enough that Kaoru couldn’t even begin to bristle, “there will be food when you wake up later and I’ll come back to check on you this evening.”

Kaoru exhaled, rolling his eyes as Kojiro smiled a bit wider at him before leaving his bedroom. He listened to him putter around in the kitchen, opening and closing drawers and moving pots and pans, and he shifted between focusing on the noises that were proof of Kojiro’s existence in his apartment and the music that Carla was still playing across the speakers. It didn’t take long for him to fall asleep after that, some small part of him absurdly reassured by the combination of Kojiro’s presence and the quiet, lulling din of music.

He dreamt of flashes of blue and red and blurs of black, everything amorphous and strange and then a burst of pain that took his breath away and caused him to jolt awake, shifting uncomfortably in the bed. The blankets were still snuggly around him, perfectly tucked to ensure that he didn’t move overly much in his sleep, but he felt suffocated and stuffy within them and shifted to loosen them, before pushing himself to sitting with his good arm.

Light coming through his window said that it was firmly in the afternoon, closer to evening, and he had slept (not quite soundly, but he had slept all the same) through most of the day. The weight that his body seemed to hold confirmed that, as did the traces of the smell of miso soup that were most concentrated beside him where, of course, Kojiro had left a coffee mug beside a plate of crackers and a glass of water and a small note.

There was a strange tangle of emotions in Kaoru’s throat as he considered what had been left for him, not unlike an offering, making it difficult for him to breathe for a moment in a way that had nothing to do with the anxiety that the dream had spiked in him. Leaning over was unpleasant, but the wash of cool water over his tongue was a relief and momentarily seemed to soothe his headache, and he pressed the glass to his forehead, leaning against his headboard. Once the glass had become the same temperature of his skin, he set it back onto the bedside table and hesitated for a bare moment before picking up the note.

_ Kaoru, _

_ I know you hate eating anything heavy when you aren’t feeling well and you can barely chew without being in pain, so I made miso soup. I know you’re annoyed that I put it in your favorite travel mug, but because you don’t have a tray (who doesn’t have a tray in their house? oh right, you, you weirdo) and you can only use one arm, you’ll just have to deal with it for now. Try to drink all of this water and eat all of the crackers, I’ll know if you haven’t. _

_ Kojiro _

He exhaled exasperatedly and felt his ribs twinge for his trouble and he set the note beside him on the bed, reaching for the coffee mug and popping back the top. It was a good idea, precisely the sort of idea that Kojiro would’ve thought of in order to make it so that Kaoru would be able to eat more easily with only one arm while he was by himself, and it was slightly aggravating to know that, tucked alongside the thankfulness that he felt. Kaoru made his way through most of the soup that had been left for him and some of the crackers and all of the water.

“Carla, music volume three,” he said, feeling somewhat confident that his head could tolerate the music being slightly louder as he settled back against the bed and frowned at his arm, and then at his leg beneath the blankets.

Injury was a risk of any sport. Injury at the hand of someone else was technically a risk of any sport, though this whole ordeal was less of a risk of skateboarding and more a risk of skating against Adam. Kaoru sorely wanted to pay back all of the pain that he was in, never mind the fact that he wouldn’t be able to skate at all for several weeks, that remembering that again brought his anxiety right back to the surface. His mind felt overly full and his body still felt sore all over, his jaw alight with pain every time that he shifted it even slightly. It was a wonder he hadn’t lost any teeth, though he had cut the inside of his mouth on several of them.

Arrogance was often his downfall. He had always been confident in his abilities and would be confident in his abilities for the rest of his life, but pride was his hubris and he had been eager and determined to skate against Adam. He had been for years, ever since S started and Adam ignored his and Kojiro’s attempts to challenge him to a beef.

_ It was boring. _ What garbage.

Kaoru’s skating style was calculated and perfected, he had avoided the ridiculous  _ love hug _ by using his skating style, hadn’t he? But instead, Adam deemed him boring, never mind the friendship that they used to have, though he doubted that was friendship, now. Adam had been chasing something with them, or maybe he had been running from something. Seeking his Eve, some bullshit like that, and he hadn’t found it with them, after all. Meaning that Kaoru and Kojiro were an afterthought.

He supposed he could admit to himself that he was mostly frustrated that  _ he _ was an afterthought. Kaoru had always liked feeling special. Who didn’t? To know that he was, in the end, boring in the eyes of the skater that he had admired so much when he was younger…

Well. It didn’t matter, anyways. Adam was a terrible person, and maybe Kaoru should’ve kept Langa and Reki far away from him. It was terrible, really, to have encouraged that on any level. Kaoru didn’t regret it, exactly, but they were just children, and he should’ve known better.

_ A monster worse than Adam, _ Kojiro had said about Langa. That could’ve been blustering after having lost to a rookie, but Kaoru wasn’t sure if it had been. From everything that he had watched of Langa and Langa’s skating, it wasn’t exactly an exaggeration. It was just that Langa was a child, and skated because it apparently brought him joy. There wasn’t an ulterior motive aside from that. Or, Kaoru hoped there wasn’t.

Kojiro hadn’t meant it in a way to liken Langa to him in any way but his ridiculous skating skills, Kaoru was certain. Sure he was likely smarting from his loss to someone who had picked up skateboarding barely two or so months ago (where had time gone?) but Kojiro was too kind of a man to equate a veritable child to a man like Adam after having seen everything that Adam had done over the years, even one as thoroughly unique as Langa.

Absently, he picked up Kojiro’s note again, thumb tracing across his lettering, and stared at it until he fell asleep, thinking of him.

He dreamed of Paris.

Kaoru woke again in the middle of the night to a quiet apartment and a refilled glass of water and mug of soup on his bedside table. The note that Kojiro had left with him earlier that day was crushed in his hand, and he deposited it on the table and ate what was left for him.

Getting to the bathroom was marginally difficult alone, but he had use of one leg and one arm and a wheelchair, so he managed well enough on his own. As he struggled back into bed, he managed a spiteful thought for how Kojiro had insisted that he couldn’t take care of himself, and fell asleep again, thoroughly exhausted by his efforts.

He didn’t dream of anything, this time.

“Where’s my skateboard?” Kaoru asked early the next morning, sitting in his wheelchair in a fresh set of clothes (Kojiro helped him dress, obviously) and somewhat washed (there wasn’t time for an extensive aided bath) and watching Kojiro move around the kitchen. He had more energy, today, or at least enough that he didn’t think he was at immediate risk of sleeping through another day, but his whole body still ached terribly. There were the painkillers, but he didn’t want to have to take them unless he absolutely had to.

Kojiro made a face and glanced at Kaoru, only to be met with a stare that could kill someone if it were physically possible. “It’s fine, control freak, I put it on the charger in your closet,” he said, pointing his spatula at Kaoru, “and you’re not allowed on it.”

“I wasn’t going to try and skate, idiot,” Kaoru said, gesturing to his casted leg, “I can barely stand. Some of us have common sense.”

“You left the hospital against medical advice to come see me.”

“I just wanted to work on her,” Kaoru spoke over Kojiro loudly, though quickly regretted it after his head throbbed unpleasantly. “I was thinking about some upgrades to make to her systems and capabilities.”

“Brainiac,” Kojiro rolled his eyes, though there was unmistakable traces of fondness in his tone that Kaoru knew well, “you can’t let it rest, huh?”

“You’re the one that says skateboarders are idiots,” Kaoru said, maneuvering his wheelchair back into his room to open his closet door and retrieve his skateboard.

“We are idiots,” Kojiro said loudly.

“Speak for yourself,” Kaoru sat in front of his closet for a few moments and tried to figure out how he could lean over to unplug his skateboard from the charger and bring it into his lap without causing unnecessary pain for himself.

And, as if sensing the roadblock that Kaoru had found for himself, Kojiro familiar footfalls started creaking against the floor, coming towards his room. Kojiro always walked in a specific way. Everyone walked in a specific way, but Kaoru had memorized Kojiro’s loping, steady gait when they were teenagers and he had been furtively cataloguing nearly everything about Kojiro. His gained musculature hadn’t done anything to change the way that he walked, and Kaoru simply moved out of the way of the closet to let Kojiro kneel down to work on getting his board unplugged.

“Couldn’t just wait, could you?” Kojiro said, clearly exasperated as he straightened up, Kaoru’s skateboard in hand.

“No,” he said tartly, before holding out his arm, “now hand her over.”

“Stop calling your skateboard a  _ her _ , man,” Kojiro smirked at him before turning and starting to walk out of the room, “and I’m not giving this to you to hold in your lap, this is going on the table where you can work on it later.”

“Controlling,” Kaoru called after him.

“No,  _ concerned _ ,” Kojiro fixed a serious look at him as Kaoru came back around the corner, and Kaoru simply returned it with a raised eyebrow, watching him closely as he set his skateboard on the table. “Stop looing at me like that, as if I’d ever hurt your precious Carla.”

“I wouldn’t put it past you,” Kaoru said with a prim sniff. “I probably won’t be able to eat what you’re cooking today,” he said it genuinely and without a trace of irritation. It wasn’t meant to be a slight, it was meant to be a warning that he wasn’t certain if his jaw was up for any amount of chewing that didn’t require simply opening his mouth and swallowing.

“I figured,” Kojiro said, returning to the pan where he was preparing fish, “but these will keep for a few days in the refrigerator, and if you’re feeling up for it you should eat something other than soup.”

“No promises,” Kaoru said dryly, watching Kojiro move around the kitchen again. He had always liked watching Kojiro in his element, whether it be skateboarding (though Kaoru still maintained that he was easily more skilled that Kojiro, even if he only said as much to be contrary) or cooking, but especially cooking. Kojiro somehow moved around all kitchens as if he were perfectly at home in them, once he knew where everything was located, and Kaoru had long ago let him organize things to his liking. It wasn’t like Kaoru was an especially skilled chef.

So he watched Kojiro prepare a few meals for him to eat for a while before he started to roll around his apartment, going into one of his storage closets and staring at the box where he kept all of his tech components for his skateboard. Which was certainly too heavy for him to carry one handed, never mind resting on his lap with an injured leg.

The sink turned off and Kaoru heard Kojiro drying his hands, “Alright, I need to get to the restaurant, do you need anything else?” Kaoru was loathe to say yes, given that he needed help with just about everything at this point, and felt stupidly thankful when Kojiro made a soft  _ ah _ noise and came over to where he was standing in the hall. “This one?” he knocked a knuckle against the box that Kaoru was staring at, and he grabbed it after he nodded confirmation.

Kaoru followed him over to the table and watched him set it down, feeling thoroughly frustrated and furious, though not with Kojiro at this point. With himself, primarily, for being physically unable to do very much, and with Adam, secondarily, for apparently finding it necessary to practically smash his skull in. As if to deliver punishment, or teach him a lesson.

“I’ll be back later, okay? Remember to eat something,” Kojiro’s hand was warm on his shoulder as he patted it in passing, and Kaoru exhaled. Listened to him gather his things again and start to slip on his shoes while unlocking the door at the same time, a habit that Kojiro had gotten into when they were sixteen for some reason.

“Kojiro?”

“Yeah?” a hint of worry.

“Thank you.”

A moment of quiet and then, “Of course, Kaoru. Message me if you need anything.”

The door clicked shut behind him quietly and Kaoru breathed for a few minutes, rubbing his hand over his chest wishing, not for the first time, that this ever present ominous anxiety that hovered over him like his own personal storm cloud, would go away. For a day, perhaps, or a few hours or minutes or even seconds. Then he started to look over his skateboard closely, scowling at the scuff marks and dents that hadn’t been there before, and began to sort through the box of parts one handed, intent on settling into something that would distract him, even if only for a few hours.

Working on his board was significantly slower than usual, between the fact that he could only really use his left, nondominant, hand combined with the general sense of pain that he was feeling. It was frustrating, but he kept on stubbornly all the same, Carla playing music quietly in the background. If nothing else this kept his mind out of the loop of his fury with his injury, which always led to thinking about Adam, which Kaoru decided that he was better off avoiding in general. Both because the amount of rage that he was feeling likely wasn’t conducive to healing, and seeking out Adam to bash his head in with a skateboard certainly wouldn’t be conducive to the healing process.

So he worked, even as he became steadily more frustrated by his inability to do things that he had been perfectly able to do several days ago. It was a more focused anger, something of a release that wouldn’t have to be centered solely on Kojiro nor the increasingly wild imaginings of physically harming Adam. Something that was physical and absolute and required methodology, not to mention that he cared deeply about and therefore wouldn’t harm.

He ate, at some point, staring at the television where he had started streaming skateboarding videos automatically and feeling a faint bitterness bloom on the back of his tongue. Kaoru muted it and reached for his phone, settling in to do several business calls to his manager discussing his physical state and that, yes, his dominant hand was out of commission for the finer intricacies of calligraphy for several weeks, or however long it would take to get this splint properly taken off.

It wasn’t the most professional of ways to do things, but he stared at the television while informing his manager that his few employees would have a few days off before he would return to business practices, whether or not he was able to do calligraphy for the time being. He shouldn’t, he was aware, it was descending him into a more foul mood with every moment, but he kept his voice calm and steady as he spoke to her and informed her no, he’d be quite alright and didn’t need her help caring for himself, and that was outside of her paygrade anyways.

“Hmm,” she hummed disbelievingly, “very well, Sakurayashiki. I will message the clients waiting on your pieces today, and cancel the handful of events that you were booked for over the next few weeks by the end of the day.”

“Thank you, Ito,” he hung up and stared at the television for several moments longer. “Carla, play work music,” he said, turning away from the screen and returning to his skateboard as she switched from quiet jazz to a thrum of familiar rock music, though still at a low volume and he sat back and stared at the pieces he had set out on the table, taking a deep breath, before getting back to work.

Distractions, distractions.

He dreamed of Kojiro.

“Sleeping here can’t be good for your ribs,” there was a gentle hand on his back and Kaoru quickly realized several things: Kojiro had let himself in again, the sun had set at some point, Carla was still playing rock music, there was likely still skateboarding videos playing on the television and that he had fallen asleep at the table in the midst of working.

“It’s not pleasant,” Kaoru said, unable to keep irritation out of his voice as he sat up, mouth twisting as his ribs twinged and he pressed his free hand over his chest. It didn’t help, but it was nice to know that there was something still capable of a full range of motion. He glanced up at Kojiro, staring at him flatly as he, in turn, received an exasperated look.

“We should get you into the bath,” Kojiro sifted his fingers carefully through Kaoru’s hair, skirting the area where his scalp had started bleeding from the impact with the ground. It was tender, and his hair was certainly matted disgustingly in that area, never mind that Kaoru had carefully tried to wash it previously. “Or do you want to eat first?”

“Bath,” Kaoru said immediately, rolling his shoulders. The right one was unpleasant to move, but the doctor had said to move any joint that wasn’t being immobilized by the splint, and he wiggled his fingers too, watching them move. It was reassuring to know that his right upper limb was still capable of movement, at least. “Though I don’t think I can use the bath properly, I’ll probably just use the shower.”

“I’ll fill the tub less than halfway and we’ll see what we can do,” Kojiro said, walking to the bathroom to start the water and then darting into his bedroom to grab a fresh yukata, hanging it on the door, and going back into the bathroom. It was several minutes before steam started to drift out of the room and Kojiro stepped back out, shirt sleeves rolled up along with his pants. It was thoroughly ridiculous looking, but Kaoru took a moment to appreciate his forearms anyways.

He wheeled himself to the bathroom and to Kojiro’s side, and he stopped in the doorway, turning back around. They maneuvered around each other naturally, still, despite the wheelchair. “This okay?” Kojiro reached for the knot of his arm sling and paused, fingers on the fabric, looking at Kaoru with a gentle, unassuming expression.

“Don’t ask stupid questions,” Kaoru said, glancing away from him. It was better that it was Kojiro than essentially anyone else in the universe, in truth, though he suspected that Kojiro knew that on some level. Kojiro seeing him in this state was as frustrating as anything else about being injured, but there was no one else that Kaoru would prefer for this. There was no one else that he trusted more, or was more comfortable with.

His very heart seemed to stutter strangely as Kojiro gently untied the sling and Kaoru extended his elbow carefully. Kojiro’s worry visibly increased on his face before he quickly hid it with bemused exasperation before he reached for the tie of Kaoru’s yukata. “I know you have more casual clothes that would be easier to wear with that splint.”

“Shirts would be more of a chore to put on than a yukata,” Kaoru gripped the arm of his wheelchair with one arm and shifted forward awkwardly, letting the comfortable fabric fall away from his shoulders and pool against the back. “Pants, too.”

“Right, I forgot about pants for a moment.”

“Of course you did,” Kaoru bumped his forehead against Kojiro’s chest for a moment and simply remained there, breathing in his familiar smell. Without hesitation, Kojiro laid his hands gently on either side of Kaoru’s back, warmth leeching into his skin. “Idiot.”

“Careful who you call idiot,” Kojiro said, chiding, “I’m the one with the plastic bags to wrap up your splints.”

“I might as well do it myself, you’re going to be clumsy about it.”

“I’m a chef, you know, knife work requires as much dexterity as calligraphy.”

“Don’t remind me,” Kaoru said, though less about equating knife work to calligraphy (it was true, to a point, and Kaoru was aware that he was terrible with a knife to the point that Kojiro rarely let him help cook) and more about reminding him how much dexterity calligraphy required. Dexterity he would have to partly relearn, with how much his muscles would atrophy in the next several weeks. He pinched Kojiro’s side.

“God you’re annoying,” Kojiro said without heat, one of his hands sliding up to curve against the back of Kaoru’s neck, squeezing gently, before he pushed him back. “Let me go get the bags and we’ll wrap you up.”

It was an ordeal, as Kaoru predicted it would be. A strange balance of plastic and tape and Kaoru pointing out where it wasn’t sealed and Kojiro complaining that he was complaining. In the end, Kaoru reached over and tucked in the end of the plastic bag and held it against the bend of his elbow and demanded that Kojiro just tape it shut, because this ranked among the stupidest arguments that they had ever had, including that argument they had when they were teenagers about whether or not Kaoru liked tea, because obviously he did, but Kojiro had somehow been convinced otherwise.

“You hated the tea that I brought you that one morning,” Kojiro pointed the remaining plastic bag at Kaoru before crouching down and starting to slip the bag over his leg.

“I dislike black tea, you imbecile,” Kaoru pushed his free knee against Kojiro’s face, mashing it slightly, simply because Kojiro’s head was essentially between his knees and he could. He couldn’t help but smile as Kojiro laughed and grabbed his knee, pushing it to the side. “I like most other teas, you knew that.”

“I did not, you didn’t tell me that at the time,” Kojiro said, shoving his shoulder against the wily knee and holding it against the wheelchair with his bodyweight as he wrestled with the back. Kaoru, quite helpfully, leaned down and used one hand to help him, considering the other was firmly wrapped in plastic at the moment. “Of course I was confused when a few weeks later you asked me to get you tea from the convenience store.”

“I was asking for tea, obviously I wanted it.”

“You could’ve been messing with me!”

Kaoru rolled his eyes, though it was perfectly true and Kaoru had messed with Kojiro plenty when they were teenagers (not to say that he had stopped with adulthood), and leaned back against his wheelchair as Kojiro finished and stood up glancing over Kaoru’s mostly naked body with a perfunctory look, as if checking to make sure he didn’t have any other mysterious splits, before looking at his face and, apparently, remembering the bandage that was on there.

“We should probably cover that in plastic, huh?”

“For now, but I want to change the bandage once I bathe.”

“Yeah, sure,” Kojiro said, disappearing for a moment and returning with another plastic bag and some scissors. He cut a sizable square out of it and taped it to Kaoru’s face carefully, fingers light against his skin, as if he were afraid of causing any increased pain.

Without speaking, Kojiro helped Kaoru get to standing on one foot, most of his body weight leaned against him, and helped him over to the stool set just outside of the fall of the showerhead. It was awkward and slippery, but Kojiro held him firmly against his bulk to ensure that Kaoru wouldn’t fall over and hurt himself worse in his own bathroom. Still, Kaoru felt like he had run a half marathon for all of the effort that it took, and it was a relief to be able to sit on something solid.

“Take off your clothes, dumbass,” he said leaning back as far as he dared and enjoying the water pressure on his back as he glanced at Kojiro, whose shirt was already getting damp in the steam of the bathroom. “I need,” Kaoru paused, jaw setting before he remembered that his jaw still hurt fiercely and he winced, feeling a fresh wave of frustration threaten to bowl him over, making the next word mangled in his mouth, “help.”

“If you say so,” Kojiro looked at him carefully for a moment before, absurdly, stepping out of the bathroom. Kaoru could hear several items of clothing hit the ground as he scooted the stool back to get his head beneath the water spray. He found himself lucky that the head injury he sustained to the back of his head hadn’t required stitches, but it stung anyways as hot water poured over it, and he sighed.

Kojiro returned quickly and raised a silently judgmental eyebrow at the fact that Kaoru had moved the stool unnecessarily. It was a look that he had learned from Kaoru, himself, and he couldn’t help but roll his eyes exasperatedly. “Are you going to help me, or not?”

“I’m here, aren’t I?” there wasn’t a trace of impatience in Kojiro’s voice as he stepped around Kaoru, blocking the spray temporarily and causing him to shiver.

“You are,” it was more acknowledgement then anything. Acknowledgement and silent thanks, in repetition to what he had said earlier that day. Kaoru heard him unlatch the showerhead from the wall and exhaled quietly as the water started to pour over him.

He bathed perfunctorily. Kojiro was careful and thorough about washing his hair, mindful of avoiding pressing harshly against the tender spot on his scalp, and not complaining about having to kneel on the hard tile floor. They did end up trying the half empty bath, Kojiro lowering him carefully into the water while making sure that his wrapped leg was kept on the lip and his arm didn’t get submerged at any point in time. It likely looked as ridiculous as it felt, but Kaoru was glad to be able to soak for a while as he watched Kojiro wash himself beneath the showerhead quietly.

“What brand is this?” Kojiro asked, squinting at the bottle of conditioner that he was holding. “There’s no name on it and you use it, so it has to be stupid expensive.”

It was, indeed, stupid expensive. “As if I’d ever reveal my secrets.”

“Stingy,” Kojiro said with a long suffering roll of his eyes as he poured out a generous amount onto his hand. “I don’t think it should be possible to be both stingy and a snob.”

“See if I ever let you use my hair products again.”

“Cruel.”

Getting Kaoru out of the tub was overall easier than getting him into it, and he balanced himself carefully on one leg, hands on Kojiro’s shoulders, as Kojiro started to dry him off as quickly and carefully as possible. Kaoru wasn’t much help, here, and instead he watched Kojiro work with the sort of devoted concentration that he gave to cooking or skateboarding or his family. His heart lurched strangely, watching him, and Kaoru squeezed Kojiro’s shoulders gently in response. For once, that didn’t distract him from his task, but he did hum questioningly, to which Kaoru made an aborted noise that they both knew meant  _ later _ . Kojiro had plenty of practice with listening to Kaoru and understanding what he was saying when he wasn’t saying anything at all.

When Kojiro was done he threw the towel over his shoulder and straightened, giving Kaoru time to adjust his hold on his shoulders and placing his hands briefly on Kaoru’s waist. There and gone, and Kaoru felt like he was seventeen again and stupidly, mindlessly wishing that his best friend would just kiss him.

“Kojiro,” he said, voice steady.

“Yeah?” Kojiro smiled at him, sweet as honey and unassuming, utterly without expectation.

Kaoru pulled him down to kiss him. It wasn’t a kiss of legend or one out of any sodden, ridiculous love story that Kaoru used to read when they were younger and he was embarrassed about that sort of thing, and he had hated all of them besides (Kojiro always wondered why the hell he read them, then, and Kaoru always said something about junk food for the brain), but it made something in his chest unfurl. Not quite a kiss in the rain, but something nearby, and he kissed him firmly but briefly, mindful of the fact that his literal face hurt like hell, before pulling away.

Kojiro looked gently surprised, mouth slightly parted, and Kaoru liked that expression on him.

“I think I’ll try eating the fish. But no promises.”

Kojiro’s expression shifted into something ridiculous and overly romantic and he kissed the top of Kaoru’s head like the absolute fool he was. “I’ll help you eat, if you want. I know you’re a bit clumsy with that left arm.”

“Maybe.”

A quiet laugh, “No complaining if your jaw hurts.”

“I’m injured, I’m allowed to complain.”

“Pulling the injury card whenever you want, huh,” Kojiro muttered as he helped Kaoru get the yukata on, tying it snug around his waist and helping him out of the bathroom and back into his wheelchair. They unwrapped him from the plastic after that, and Kojiro got dressed quickly to help him change the bandage on his face. It was a mess, if the face that Kojiro made was anything to go by, and Kojiro apologized quietly as Kaoru pulled away instinctively as more salve was applied.

“No bandage,” he said as Kojiro started tor each for one. “I’ll put one on before I sleep tonight. Fresh air helps wounds heal.”

“I thought that was a wive’s tale?”

“Leaving it unbandaged for a few hours won’t kill me, you idiot.”

“Fine, fine.”

Kaoru kissed him again.

“No sling, either, I want mobility and the split is keeping my wrist immobile well enough.”

“You can’t just kiss me whenever you want to convince me to do something!”

“But it’s working.”

“No it’s not you robotic maniac.”

“You need another hobby.”

“What hobby will I learn when I have full use of one arm and one leg?”

A pause. “Crochet?”

Kojiro deserved to have a pillow thrown at him for that.

The various pains in his body began to abate over the next several days, and Kojiro continued to drop by every early morning and late evening around his schedule at the restaurant. Sometimes he even spent his lunch break at Kaoru’s apartment under the guise of making sure he wasn’t sleeping anywhere he shouldn’t be, or even to ensure that he hadn’t grabbed his skateboard in a mad dash and tried to ride it in spite of his injuries. It was pointless, but Kaoru admitted to himself that Kojiro’s concern was at least somewhat warranted. He had considered just trying to ride his skateboard, heedless of the injuries that were riddling his body and the fact that he could very well worsen them given that he could barely stand on his own, but common sense had won out in the end.

It felt like being trapped in a cage. Kaoru had always resented the mere concept of restrictions, despised being held in place and being told to remain where he was. Skateboarding had been his escape from suffocating expectations when he was younger, and had been an entryway to wanton teenage rebellion, and while he hadn’t continued to skateboard into adulthood for those reasons, in his mind he still equated it to freedom.

Kaoru did poorly with confinement. But then, who did?

He had started to wheel himself around a familiar walking path once he felt that he had the energy sufficient to go outside properly. It was marginally better to get outside and breathe fresh air, but he found himself catching upon areas where he and Kojiro and their friends had used to skateboard when they were younger, and where he still tended to at this age, and he felt a deep, irrational envy. He wasn’t sure what he was feeling envious of. His younger self? Kojiro, for still being able to skateboard? Every other person who was able to, whether or not they did or could?

A month. He could cope with a month. He would have to cope with a month whether he liked it or not, because while Kojiro hadn’t hidden his skateboard yet, Kaoru wouldn’t put that beyond him. But the yearning was there, and his anxiety scraped along the inside of his chests, smarting along his healing ribs, making an unnecessary and unwanted racket.

It made it significantly worse that he was limited from doing nearly everything that brought him some measure of comfort. Calligraphy was impossible with his dominant hand out of commission, and coding and technology was significantly harder to do with his left hand alone, though he did his best. Through sheer force of will alone he managed to repair and upgrade several parts of his skateboard, though he made a mess as a result, and while his motorcycle was certainly the next thing that was on his list of upgrades to do, working on it injured was effectively impossible.

But he tried, much to Kojiro’s immense stress.

“Are you crazy?” Kojiro had, unerringly, found him in the garage that he had as part of his rent, where Kaoru had painstakingly lowered himself to the ground and was peering at his motorcycle, legs akimbo and right arm flexing and extending at the elbow slowly. Excessively slowly. “Don’t answer that, I already know you are crazy.”

“I didn’t hurt myself getting there,” Kaoru said, irate and glaring up at Kojiro, who was looking at him with a mixture of exasperation, worry, and anger, all of which made his expression overall thunderous. Quite the face, combined with his S clothing that he was wearing. “I’m hardly even straining myself.”

“How did you imagine you were going to get back into your wheelchair?” Kojiro said, crossing his arms.

“Some of us aren’t brainless like you,” Kaoru said, throwing his wrench into his toolbox and shifting onto his right knee, left leg held out at the hip as he balanced carefully for a moment, and then got his right foot beneath him and started to stand, effectively doing a pistol squat. There wasn’t a point in continuing his work, and Kojiro had found him just as he had started anyways.

“Impressive,” Kojiro said dryly, though there was obviously some part of him that was genuinely impressed for all that he closed the distance between them and began helping Kaoru into his wheelchair, though not before brushing their mouths together in hello. “But that counts as excessive physical exertion, brainiac.”

“I was sitting.”

“You were working on your motorcycle!”

“And sitting,” Kaoru said stubbornly, elbowing Kojiro in the hip as best as he could with his free arm.

“What if the motorcycle had fallen on you?”

Kaoru made an irritated noise, “Carla has several defense mechanisms to ensure that no excessive harm comes to me,” he paused, glancing at his arm, “to a point.”

“Right,” Kojiro said, clearly not believing him, but trailing after him as they entered the apartment building proper and stepping into the elevator. “I know you get stir crazy, Kaoru,” that was putting it lightly and they both knew it, considering the wry quirk of Kojiro’s mouth, “but this is only temporary.”

“Easy for you to say,” Kaoru didn’t bother keeping the bitterness out of his voice, but allowed it when Kojiro touched his hair gently. They entered the apartment together again and he told Carla to turn on the lights as Kojiro peeled away into the kitchen and Kaoru paused to watch him again. He had always liked watching Kojiro. Always. It inspired a calm fondness in him that didn’t mute the anxiety that he felt, didn’t stop his fingers from always moving always curling or his mind from racing in a strange, frenetic way, but it was something else to focus on. The easy, fluid way that Kojiro moved. “I’m going to S with you tonight.”

Kojiro almost dropped the pot that he had picked up to reheat some soup for Kaoru to eat. “Crazy,” he muttered, apparently to himself, before setting the pot on the stove and turning around, a tight, considering look on his face. “Are you sure, Kaoru?”

“Help me get dressed.”

“Kaoru, watching the rest of the tournament——”

“Help me get dressed or I’ll do it myself.”

Kojiro threw his hands in the air and made a loud, disgruntled noise, “I’m trying to look out for you, Kaoru, I know you want to get back on a skateboard badly and I’m not sure if watching races will help.”

“Don’t tell me what isn’t good for me,” Kaoru said, knowing that he was being mulish, but he turned and started wheeling into his room anyways. “If you were the one injured you’d be begging me to take you to S to watch everything happen.”

Footsteps followed him and Kojiro said, begrudgingly, “Alright, fine.”

Getting dressed in a skin tight sleeveless turtleneck was remarkably more difficult than slipping into a yukata. Kaoru was somewhat certain that Kaoru was going to accidentally choke him at one point with his shirt, in fact, and his head nearly went into an arm hole along with his injured arm nearly being pulled out of its socket. Getting out of it later was going to be terrible.

“Getting this off later is going to be a nightmare,” Kojiro echoed the thought, literally wiping sweat from his brow from the exertion that they had both just gone through.

“You aren’t cutting if off,” Kaoru reached up and pulled himself to his standing foot, hand on Kojiro’s shoulders, and tried not to feel thoroughly ridiculous as he helped him into his hakama.

“Why do you have to be so dramatic?” Kojiro knelt down to help Kaoru put on one tabi sock and zori sandal, given that it was pointless to try and get anything onto his left foot. It was bizarrely intimate to have Kojiro’s hand gripping his foot in that way, and Kaoru quickly discarded the thought as he slipped his arms into his sleeveless yukata. “No one should be this preoccupied with appearances.”

“Coming from the man who spends hours at the gym most days of the week,” Kaoru bumped his knee against Kojiro’s head again, and got harmlessly swatted at for it, only for it to be followed up with a kiss pressed against the inside of his knee, muffled by the fabric of his hakama. “Don’t be a hypocrite.”

“Don’t be a hypocrite,” Kojiro mocked, a smile on his face.

Kaoru rolled his eyes and felt ridiculously fond. “How old are you?”

Going to S didn’t alleviate the cloistered, caged feeling that was plaguing him. It was like opening the door to the cage but the chains that were keeping him there were just too short to let him truly escape, and there was no lock to pick or way to escape. Kaoru hadn’t really thought that being present in this space and immersed in the energy to S would help in that regard, honestly, it was more that he craved being here to witness it all unfold and, beyond that, there was an element of pride.

Adam had injured him, had attempted to cave his skull in with his skateboard and had grounded him for the next several weeks, but Kaoru refused to simply disappear for that time. He was still Cherry, one of the founders of S and lauded as one of the greatest skateboarders to ever dare to take this track, and while his pride may be pointless it was nearly all he had, at this point.

So he sat there in his wheelchair, aware that there was no way that he would be able to stand on one leg for the entirety of the night, and watched the beefs playing across the screen, wiggling the fingers of his right hand and moving his left leg restlessly. Kojiro glanced over at him, affixed to his side and unwilling to leave it at any point during the night, periodically, concern obvious on his face.

He had always been terrible at hiding it. That moment before his race with Adam, too.

“Stop wringing your hands like a bereaved nursemaid,” Kaoru said, voice stony and eyes sharp. “There are people watching.”

“I’m allowed to be worried about you,” Kojiro slipped his hand behind Kaoru’s back and pressed it between his shoulder blades, a warm solidity that grounded him not in the way that injury did, but in a way that softened the racket of anxiety in his chest.

“Be less obvious about it.”

“Not a chance, control freak.”

“You’re insufferable.”

Kojiro grinned, something broad and boyish and handsome, the sort of smile that Kaoru had always been caught off guard by and that had made his chest twist when they were younger (though it wasn’t as though it did anything different, now), and leaned down to say quietly against his ear, “Yeah, but you love me.”

Kaoru could feel his face warm, and was infinitely glad for his face mask. “I despise you, you animal.”

Kaoru dreamed most frequently about skateboarding and Kojiro and the ocean. He wasn’t sure why he dreamt so frequently about the ocean, about swimming in it and diving deeper and deeper and deeper when the ocean rarely held any true significant to him, but it was better to dream about the ocean than about having his face bashed in. Granted, that alongside several nightmares which showcased a general inability for him to move or speak made an appearance more times that he cared to count.

In his dreams he was always uninjured. In his nightmares, not so much.

Skateboarding and Kojiro. And the ocean.

He returned to work the following week, despite the fact that he couldn’t physically do calligraphy. There was still business to oversee and commissions to respond to and other things that he had to do as owner of his own business. Kojiro hadn’t been especially fond of Kaoru returning to work so quickly, but Kaoru had brushed him off and said that he was an adult, and if he had to sit around his apartment unable to do much at all with himself any longer he would snap and likely kill Kojiro.

“You wouldn’t kill me,” Kojiro said with heavy handed amusement, “then you’d have to mourn me.”

“I haven’t ruled out severe physical harm.”

With the overall pain that his body was experiencing downtrending by and large, Kaoru desperately needed something other than tinkering with his refrigerator and sullenly watching skateboarding to pass time with. He was slipping dangerously towards listless depression secondary to the restless anxiety that he was feeling and while work wasn’t nearly as good as skateboarding at alleviating much of that stress, it was something to occupy his mind with.

So he apologized benignly to clients and gave them his new timeline for when their commissions would be done and apologized formally to event coordinators who had tried to book him for whatever it was that they needed of him. He checked over his finished pieces several more times before clearing them for transport, balanced his checkbooks, and ensured that all of his employees were doing perfectly fine, ensuring them that they would be paid regardless of the fact that they hadn’t been working overly much, recently.

“I’m surprised you haven’t tried doing calligraphy out of sheer frustration,” Kojiro said, leaning over to steal a piece of chicken from Kaoru’s food. They had eaten lunch together several times per week to start with, so Kojiro showing up at the doorway to his office wasn’t at all surprising, and neither was the fact that he had come bearing food, rather than attempting to drag Kaoru to one of their favorite haunts.

Kaoru knocked his chopsticks away, though he probably wasn’t going to eat the chicken anyways. Chewing was still unpleasant, and he didn’t have much of an appetite despite knowing that he needed to eat in order to maintain strength. “Not all of us need to physically exert ourselves when needing distraction.”

Kojiro stared at him for several moments before something like suspicion started to bleed ominously into his expressions, “Yeah, but you do,” he said slowly, and started to look around the office. “You like to make fun of me for working out when I’m stressed, but you always dy something with your hands when you are.”

“Stop looking around like you’re going to find something, idiot,” Kaoru snapped, setting his food aside and starting to roll forward as Kojiro exclaimed and dove for a piece of fine paper tucked beneath a pile of paperwork that Kaoru had been working through. “Put that down!”

“No excessive physical exertion!” Kojiro said, brandishing the fine parchment at Kaoru before looking at it. Surprise crossed his face, though he tried to hide it, and Kaoru kicked him with his right leg, “Ow, god,” he said beneath his breath, rubbing his knee where Kaoru had nailed him.

“Calligraphy isn’t excessive physical exertion, give that back,” Kaoru made a grab for the paper, and Kojiro relinquished it, letting Kaoru drop it blindly onto his desk. It felt on top of his food, which was a waste of paper, but he found that he didn’t particularly care. The paper had been wasted anyways, given that Kaoru’s range of motion with his fingers was still limited and he wasn’t able to hold the brush properly anyways, never mind that he had attempted with his left hand out of sheer exasperation. It had gone about as well as you could imagine.

He had wanted to break his brush, but knew that he wouldn’t be able to manage it one handed, and instead had thrown it carelessly into a sink for one of his employees to wash. Immature and unbearably bitter actions, he had also wanted to tear up the paper but had instead practically hidden it, a peculiar sort of agony threatening to grip him.

“It requires fine movements of your wrist, which is broken, stupid,” Kojiro sounded as if he was trying to chastise Kaoru, but missed the mark because of the gentle sympathy and soothing tone of his voice. It was discordant and strange to listen to.

“Don’t give me your pity,” Kaoru scowled.

“Sorry,” Kojiro said, and it sounded like, or maybe felt like, he was apologizing for multiple things at once, in the span of a single word. Strange, how words could hold enormities, entire worlds, whole concepts and things that were half hidden away and sequestered, a million unsaid things. Kojiro had carefully avoided pitying Kaoru or really even apologizing to him at all throughout this whole ordeal, instinctively knowing that Kaoru’s pride was injured as badly as the whole of his body, and he didn’t want to hear pity of all things from Kojiro. Or useless, meaningless apologies that wouldn’t help much at all. He couldn’t skateboard, couldn’t create art, and could barely code a line or upgrade random kitchen appliances around his house, and nothing would alleviate that frustration or soothe the anxiety that was threatening to consume him. Not even a gentle apology, or talking about it, or anything of the sort.

Instead, Kojiro had quietly remained beside him, helping him in spite of his reticent nature and unwillingness to ask for help at all. Without comment, other than when he thought that Kaoru was doing something especially dangerous to his person, and without complaint, helping him bathe and maneuver around his apartment and even reorganizing things for him so it was easier for him to do things on his own when Kojiro was at work. All without Kaoru asking or requesting, because Kojiro was the person who knew him best in the world.

“Come here,” he said, looking up from where he had been staring at an ink stain on his hand. Kojiro was watching him with a carefully shuttered expression, but smiled slightly and leaned down. Kaoru skimmed his fingers along Kojiro’s jaw, before curving around the back of his neck and kissing him.

They kissed gently, always. Kojiro wasn’t demanding, conscientious of the pain that Kaoru’s jaw was in, keeping the pressure of his mouth light against Kaoru’s, hands always as careful as the rest of him. It was a practice in self control, Kaoru was aware, and a balance between treating Kaoru like he was injured and treating him like he was breakable as blown glass. Somehow, Kojiro never quite made Kaoru feel as if he were at risk of fracturing, and that in and of itself soothed some of his ragged frustration with his circumstance.

And they shifted against each other, never quite settling, and Kaoru didn’t let Kojiro pull away from him until he heard the over loud rumbling of Kojiro’s stomach and had to pull back to stare at him disbelievingly, mouth threatening to turn into a smile was Kojiro laughed. “You’ve eaten most of your lunch, how are you still hungry?”

“I’m a growing boy,” Kojiro said, taking the paper that Kaoru had discarded and throwing it into the trash, returning to pick up his food tray.

“You haven’t grown in years,” Kaoru said, eyebrow raising as Kojiro held out food for him to eat, and he rolled his eyes and allowed him to feed him small bites of food.

“I’m still putting on muscle mass.”

“Oversized gorilla.”

“Like you’re complaining.”

It was Kojiro’s idea to sit Kaoru on a skateboard and be pushed by him like they were eleven years old again, because if course it was. He suggested it genuinely after catching Kaoru glaring moodily at his skateboard for what felt like the millionth time, pushing it back and forth on the table absently, though he seemed to realize how it sounded the moment that he suggested it and then winced slightly, nose wrinkling in a way that was decidedly, terribly cute.

The worst part wasn’t that it was suggested as a way of alleviating Kaoru’s envy and unrelenting desire to get on his skateboard again, is was that he genuinely considered it for a moment. “Don’t be stupid,” he said after a moment of silence where they just stared at each other, aiming to sound irritated and succeeding, purely because he was constantly irritated at this point.

“It was just a suggestion,” Kaoru reached for the skateboard and paused when Kaoru only glared at him more furiously. “You’re the one staring mournfully at your skateboard, I’m just trying to figure out a way to help!”

“You can’t help,” Kaoru snapped, laying a possessive hand on his skateboard and feeling foolish for the gesture. “Congratulations, Kojiro, we’ve found something that you can’t help with. However will you survive without a project?” it wasn’t fair to throw sarcasm in his face when Kojiro had, genuinely, been nothing but helpful to Kaoru ever since he had gotten injured, but there was nowhere else for his fury to go.

It had already been internalized more than enough.

“You aren’t a project, Kaoru,” Kojiro’s hands were on the table and they were scowling at each other. Maybe they had been around each other for too long, at his point. Maybe Kaoru was just sick of seeing his face. But that wasn’t true at all, in the end. “I’m here because I,” he stopped, mouth setting.

_ Care about you, _ maybe.  _ Love you, _ was another reasonable end to that sentence, but either of them would just infuriate Kaoru more in this context.

“I would appreciate if you stopped bitching at me,” Kojiro said after a pause, jaw notably tense, “because I’m trying to help you. I know you’re frustrated and upset that you’re injured, never mind how you got injured,” there was a flicker of anger, there, and Kaoru knew that it wasn’t directed at him, “but stop taking it out on me. I know I’m convenient and present, but.”

Kaoru glowered at him for a few more breaths before he felt his misplaced anger unfurl and leave him, a blanket lost to the wind, and he felt his shoulders relax. He kept his hand on his skateboard and glanced down at his wrapped arm, extending his elbow slowly beneath Kojiro’s watchful gaze.

“I’m sorry,” he said after a few minutes, fury having entirely fled and leaving him exhausted.

Kojiro took his injured hand gently and started moving his thumb for him, and after a moment he leaned over and pressed his mouth against Kaoru’s splinted palm. “It’s okay.”

Kaoru leaned forward, making a brief face at the ache in his ribs, and took Kaoru’s face in his left hand, kissing him properly. “Thank you.”

Kojiro made a quiet noise and ducked forward to kiss him again.

“And no to the idea.”

A laugh. “Yeah, I figured.”

“Are you sure you should be here?” Miya was looking at him with raised eyebrows and inherent suspicion, though Kaoru knew that in the end he wouldn’t care all that much.

“Why shouldn’t I be here?” Kaoru returned, shifting in his wheelchair and making himself more comfortable to watch all of them at the skatepark.

“Does Joe know you’re here?” Miya seemed intent on answering everything with a question, and looked far too knowing for a literal child.

“He’s not my keeper.”

Miya stared at him for a few moments longer before shrugging in the end and turning on his skateboard, just as Kaoru had predicted. A young teenager’s attention span wasn’t nearly good enough to question him for long, let alone a kid like Miya. “Whatever you say, Cherry.”

“As long as you don’t get on a skateboard,” Shadow shouted from halfway across the park.

Kaoru didn’t deign to respond to that. He hadn’t necessarily intended to find the four of them, he had simply passed by the skatepark on his way back to his apartment and had seen people skating and had given into the compulsion to watch. It was a mistake, probably, something that would make the ache of missing skating worse rather than better, but he was sick of watching videos of skateboarding as opposed to the real thing.

And besides, Kojiro was busy at the gym after Kaoru had all but kicked him out of his apartment, telling him to go work out because obviously he needed to clear his mind before they both went mad.

He hadn’t the slightest clue what had transpired between Reki and Langa to put them back on speaking terms again, but whatever it had been had made Langa especially bright and Reki especially sunny, and per usual they were so preoccupied with each other that they hadn’t noticed him. Which was perfect, giving him time to simply watch all of them, even as Miya and Shadow cast him brief, concerned looks.

They had been with Kojiro when he was taken to the hospital, he knows, and they had both visited him during his stay before he had summarily left, because he was sick of being in the hospital and unable to sleep. It had been kind of them, really, and Kaoru supposed that this lot had attached themselves to himself and Kojiro one way or another, or had it been the other way around? Circumstance caused them to cross paths frequently, Kaoru remembered meeting Langa for the first time and witnessing how he stood on a skateboard outside of his studio, but he supposed that skateboarding was what drew them together in the end.

All idiots, really.

“Do you need anything?” Shadow asked twice as he rolled by, unable to keep the concern off of his face.

Kaoru gave him a flat, irritated look each time, and Shadow raised his hands as if to say  _ don’t shoot the messenger _ and continued onward. He supposed that the concern was touching on some level, but mostly grating. At least Miya simply rolled by and made passive aggressive commentary about everything from how annoying Reki and Langa were being to how irritating his most interview had been to hide how worried he was, as if he was embarrassed to be worried about Kaoru to begin with.

His feet itched, wanting to have the solidity of a skateboard beneath his feet. He could get the splits removed in approximately two weeks, but he could already tell that getting onto a board again would take longer than that. Muscle memory only went so far when muscle mass had deteriorated, leaving him significantly weaker in his left leg and right wrist than he had been to start with. Kaoru resented thinking about it, felt pure fury overwhelm him when he thought about how he would have to retrain himself to properly hold a calligraphy brush simply to do his literal, paying job. Maybe he would take a skateboard to Adam’s face, after all.

And, as if summoned by Kaoru’s mounting frustration, he could hear Kojiro’s footsteps approach. The familiar cadence of them.

“Are you trying to torture yourself?” Kojiro said sometime later. People liked to joke when they were younger that he had some sort of homing beacon for Kaoru’s location, but Kaoru knew that Kojiro simply knew him well enough to be able to guess where he was at nearly any point in time with stunning accuracy. Kaoru could do the same thing to him.

It made hiding from each other when they were legitimately angry difficult.

“And you call me dramatic,” Kaoru glanced at Kojiro and stared briefly at his biceps from where they were slightly flexed, given that Kojiro was leaning back against the fence beside him. “Does it look like I’m torturing myself?”

“Kind of,” Kojiro said, raising a hand in greeting when Shadow caught sight of him, and then Miya. “I know you can’t wait to get back on your skateboard.”

“I’m not languishing away,” Kaoru rolled his shoulder, curled and uncurled his fingers, bent his knee slowly, trying to ward off stiffness.

“Nah, but you do wish that you were one of them right now.”

Kaoru made a quiet, irritated noise. Of course he wished that he could skateboard at the moment. Of course he craved the freedom that would come with it, the ability to move and get places and take care of himself without Kojiro’s help. He supposed that he should count himself lucky that while he had broken his wrist and both dislocated his hip and had a minor hairline fracture in his ankle, all of those things were things that healed far faster than a severe fracture or a crush injury or anything of the sort. He still had the remnant of a bruise on his face, but nothing would scar.

He was lucky. He just didn't feel that way, right now.

“You aren’t going to join them?”

“Not right now.”  _ I’d rather stay with you _ went unspoken, but the tone that Kojiro had spoken with conveyed the meaning, anyways. Something impossibly tender and adoring that made Kaoru’s chest ache, and made him want to skateboard with Kojiro again desperately.

They remained there silently for some time, simply watching the other four skate. Kaoru could see Kojiro look at him periodically from his periphery, but neither of them said anything even as the sky was fading to orange and Kaoru started to maneuver his wheelchair to leave the skatepark. Kojiro walked beside him quietly as they made their way through the streets of Okinawa, leaving the excited shouts and the sound of wheels against pavement, all sounds that had been comforting to Kaoru at some point in his life, behind.

Kojiro leaned down to give him a kiss in the elevator.

Sakurayashiki Kaoru’s life revolved around skateboarding, surely you understand that by now. Skateboarding and work, leaving very little room in between (though just enough room for Kojiro). Maybe the problem was that he had affixed so much of his life to the sport, had equated it to freedom when he was younger and now that he was literally unable to skateboard he felt trapped within the own confines of his body, unable to find a way out. Where before, if he had been too anxious to sleep and Carla wasn’t helping, he could grab his skateboard and wander the streets that he knew so well until his mind was clear and he was able to finally get some reason, now there was simply his own thoughts. A book, perhaps, or a movie to watch, or something to get his mind off of things, but nothing was as concrete and absolute as skateboarding.

Kojiro was a suitable distraction, and did his best to watch movies with him and distract him from the overall existential dread that had started to set in the moment that the doctor had informed him that he would effectively be unable to skateboard for a month, but Kaoru imagined that if connecting freedom to skateboarding was bad for his psyche, doing anything even remotely similar with Kojiro was a recipe for disaster.

And besides, with Kojiro Kaoru simply felt at ease. Understood and known and seen to the point that it was uncomfortable, at times, but Kojiro rarely had expectations of him and Kaoru had no true expectations of Kojiro, in return. They existed around each other with an ease that was similar to skateboarding, but was overall less raucous and overworn.

Despite himself, Kojiro felt like home, something that he had been yearning for on a subconscious and conscious level for years. Ages. He had him, in the way that he had always had him, in the way that he had always had skateboarding, until now.

At the very least he hadn’t necessarily connected his self-worth to skateboarding. No, no, he had simply connected his sense of self. Very different. Self-worth came from his capability to calligraphy as he had always done, from the time that he was a young prodigy until now, especially since it was his primary source of income.

(Kaoru had started practicing privately with his left hand, using only cheap ink and printer paper, in a desperate bid to feel productive.)

To say that he was counting down the days until he got these splints removed was an understatement.

Listless and going out of his mind with mind numbing boredom, having upgraded all of the appliances that he physically could at this rate, Kaoru did pick up a crochet hook, yarn, and some patterns. Kojiro did have a point: crocheting was primarily one handed, and he could still flex his fingers of his right hand in order to get motion in them to steady the pattern.

It filled the time, increased the dexterousness of his left hand, and he was bizarrely good at it.

“Don’t say a word,” Kaoru said as warning when Kojiro walked into his apartment, arms laden with the week’s grocery shop, as Kaoru continued to crochet a scarf. It wasn’t even cold outside.

Kojiro stood there for a few moments, and it looked like he was fighting with himself to stop from laughing or making some ridiculous comment about Kaoru sitting on the couch crocheting, before he visibly swallowed. “I’m not saying a word.”

“You’re saying words,” Kaoru glowered at him as he completed another line, and then moved onto the next, “put those away, idiot.”

“Says the guy——” he stopped at the murderous look that Kaoru gave him and raised his hands in the air, the bags on his arms rustling, “never mind, I’m not saying a word.”

“You’re the one who suggested this,” Kaoru said to his back, primarily because he couldn’t help himself, really.

There was a pause, and Kaoru presumed that Kojiro had outright forgotten that it had been his idea that Kaoru pick up crocheting in the meantime, since he desperately needed a hobby. “I didn’t actually think you’d consider it seriously.”

“I’ve done all of the management work I can do at my studio,” Kaoru paused as the yarn almost slipped, though he saved it in the end. “I balanced all of my checkbooks, I’ve upgraded all of my appliances.”

“Yeah, I noticed, what’s the point of a Carla refrigerator?”

“To inform me when things are out of date or if I have no food in there, dimwit.”

“You don’t even cook!”

“You won’t let me work on my motorcycle.”

“Accident waiting to happen.”

“I balanced  _ your _ checkbooks.”

“Thanks for that, by the way.”

“You’re welcome, give your waitstaff a raise.”

“I was already planning on it, don’t use that disappointed tone!”

“I’ve organized all of my tech,” Kaoru continued, wrist twisting deftly as he continued crocheting, and he genuinely wondered for if a moment if this would help him become ambidextrous. “I feel as though I’ve watched every movie in existence, including the mindless ones that you like.”

“Just because they’re action movies doesn’t mean they’re bad,” Kojiro closed the refrigerator and started to put away the nonperishables.

“Mind numbing, Kojiro, I literally feel like my brain is rotting watching them. I have done nearly everything that I could possibly fill my time with, I’m the most organized I’ve ever been in my life, so now I’m…  _ crocheting _ ,” the word was bitten and mangled in his mouth and he glared at the quarter of the scarf that he had finished. “And I’m good at it.”

“I didn’t think you could be naturally good at crocheting,” Kojiro gingerly sat down on the couch next to Kaoru, careful not to jostle him too much, wrapping an arm around his shoulder and leaning in to kiss him. Kaoru turned and returned the kiss briefly, before glaring mutinously at his crochet work. “But you’ve always been good with your hands, I guess.”

“In more ways than one.”

Kojiro laughed delightedly, pressing his nose against the side of Kaoru’s face. “Don’t tempt me, I’m trying to preserve your safety.”

Kaoru made a disgruntled noise, “Disgusting, don’t say it like that.”

“What? Like——”

“You’re prettier when you don’t speak.”

“Ah, but I’m pretty.”

Kaoru elbowed him in the gut for the cheek and Kojiro wheezed, falling quiet as they both watched Kaoru work. His left hand ached, given that he hadn’t taken a break since he’d started, and he should rest it before he strains it somehow and loses the ability to use both hands, but he kept going, regardless. He wasn’t even sure who he was making the damn scarf for. Not Kojiro, that’s for sure, though Kojiro would wear it boastfully anyways.

“You’ll be back on your board soon,” Kojiro said quietly, reaching out to readjust the yarn to make it easier for Kaoru to throw his stitches, only to take the bundle of yarn into his own lap and start to unravel it for him to use.

“Not soon enough.” 

“We’re going to go visit my family today,” Kojiro said, bright as the sun outside, as he walked into Kaoru’s apartment early in the morning. It was a day off for Kojiro, and Kaoru had expected to spend the whole day with him, considering that was what Kojiro had been doing ever since he had gotten injured regardless of the fact that the date that his stupid splints would be taken off was getting nearer and nearer. Kaoru had not, however, expected to spend his day with the rest of the Nanjo family.

“What?”

“My family,” Kojiro said with exaggerated slowness, “you know, my mom, dad, and twin sisters. You’ve met them, you spent most of summer break around them when we weren’t out skateboarding.”

“I heard you the first time you idiot,” Kaoru said, putting down his spoon and abandoning eating altogether. “Why are we visiting your family?”

“Because I haven’t seen them in weeks and  _ you _ haven’t seen them in longer,” Kojiro said as if that explained everything. “My mom keeps asking about you, you know, and my dad is worried sick about you ever since your accident. They all are.”

“You told them I got injured?” Kaoru wasn’t sure if he was amused, touched, or aggravated.

“I skipped out on our monthly family dinner to take care of you, I had to explain why,” Kojiro leaned over the table to kiss Kaoru’s forehead.

“You didn’t have to skip family dinner to look after me, dumbass,” Kaoru said, though he felt stupidly pleased.

“We moved it to tonight,” Kojiro pulled out the chair across from where Kaoru was sitting and reached out to start moving Kaoru’s fingers for him with care, “and they all requested to have you there, god knows why,” he laughed as Kaoru rolled his eyes and blindly kicked him beneath the table. “And I could introduce you as my——”

They stared at each other for a moment, as if frozen in time.

“As your what?” Kaoru said, starting to smile ominously.

“What am I introducing you as?” Kojiro returned, grinning wolfishly.

“I’m not sure, idiot, what are you introducing me as to your family?”

“Well you see, someone is an annoying control freak and hasn’t told me.”

“A certain gorilla should be able to connect the dots by now if they weren’t so brainless.”

“It’s called communication, you maniac!”

“I kissed you!”

“So you say it first.”

“ _ How old are you? _ ”

“You’re the one arguing the point!”

Alright,  _ this _ easily ranked among their most pointless arguments, up there with fighting over how to put a plastic bag over his splint and whether or not Kaoru liked tea. Not quite as ridiculous as their argument about whether or not it was physically possible for them to ride a skateboard at the same time, but that one was more forgivable as they had been twelve when they argued about it, and Kaoru had been the one to say that obviously it was possible, they just had to stand close enough to each other.

Technically not incorrect on the proper skateboard, but.

There was literally no reason to be nervous as Kojiro, face red, reintroduced Kaoru to his family as his boyfriend, given that there was no chance in hell that any one of them would have a negative response, but they were both nervous, anyways. Kaoru didn’t want to look at any of them but ended up looking at Kojiro’s mother, and Kojiro was rambling in the way that he did when he was highly nervous. It was wretchedly endearing.

It was less wretchedly and more genuinely, heart stoppingly endearing when Kojiro’s family reacted with nothing but genuine, radiant joy. Kaoru wasn’t sure what to pay attention to between his father gasping delightedly, his mother grabbing Kojiro’s hands and exclaiming  _ at last _ , and his twin sisters crowed at once that they knew it. Kaoru wasn’t sure what he had been expecting, and he supposed that being so taken aback when he knew the Nanjo family were exuberant, to say the very least.

“How’d you get injured Kaoru?” Manami, one of the twins, asked once everything had calmed substantially.

Briefly, Kaoru met Kojiro’s gaze from over his mother’s shoulder from where she was, very carefully, hugging him, and Kojiro simply shrugged unhelpfully, while his sisters laughed to his immediate right. Bastards, the whole lot of them.

“Skateboarding, of course,” Kojiro’s mother said chidingly, fixing Kaoru with a concerned yet exasperated expression that he recognized from Kojiro’s face. “You boys never did learn.”

“Skaters are idiots, mom,” Kojiro said with a dazzling smile, “we never know when to let up.”

“Speak for yourself,” Kaoru said, unable to keep a smile from his face.

“Given the state of you, I’d say you certainly don’t know when to let up,” Kojiro’s dad said with a grin, and Kaoru laughed.

Crocheting was… actually relaxing.

“Hey, you finished that scarf.”

“I did,” it was warm, too, though he supposed that given the quality of the yarn that he had chosen, of course it was warm. That was the literal purpose of a scarf.

“That only took you a few days,” Kojiro wrapped his arms loosely around Kaoru from behind, placing his chin atop his head. The position probably looked ridiculous, given that Kaoru was sitting which mean that Kojiro was leaning over, probably shoving his ass into the wall, and the idea made him smirk briefly. “It looks nice, Kaoru.”

“Of course it does,” he tossed the finished scarf onto the table, and glared momentarily at one dropped stitch near the end that had happened when Kaoru had gotten a phonecall and the scarf had nearly been ruined as a result. “I made it.”

Kojiro buried his laugh in his hair, and Kaoru smiled genuinely this time, and tried to lace the fingers of their right hand together. It was awkward with the splint in the way, but Kojiro’s thumb rubbed gently against the side of his, and Kaoru swallowed a sigh.

So close. So close.

Kaoru watched Kojiro gather his things. Both of their hair was still damp from bathing earlier that evening and Kaoru felt a nearly overwhelming surge of fondness for Kojiro, which was ridiculous since he wasn’t doing anything but pulling on his coat and pushing his hair out of his face in the doorway, but he supposed that it came along with the instinctive attraction that Kaoru felt for him constantly. It was inconvenient, at times, but an aspect of their collective lives.

Kojiro caught his eye and smiled, taking off his shoes again to walk over to him and kiss him goodbye for what felt like the millionth time. Not that Kaoru was complaining.

“Stay,” he said against his mouth. Kaoru was still sitting on the couch, having informed Kojiro with no uncertain terms that he was perfectly capable of getting himself onto his wheelchair and then into bed on his own, if Kojiro wanted to go home and rest. Given how frequently Kojiro was coming and going from his apartment in recent weeks, it had occurred to him before to simply tell Kojiro to remain here with him and reduce the amount of time he spent coming and going overall, particularly in the early morning when Kojiro stopped by before work. It wouldn’t even be the first time that Kojiro had stayed at his place by a long shot, though more recent occurrences were solely due to drunkenness than anything else, but this somehow felt more significant.

As if a single word could convey the weight which Kaoru was feeling, Kojiro shifted against him and kissed him again. Their kisses had gotten less light and fleeting now that his jaw was improving by the day and the bruising had, finally, gone away entirely, and the cuts that he had on the inside of his mouth from his teeth had long since gone away. That meant that Kojiro could cup his jaw without fear of causing him immense pain. Nice for both of them, really.

“Okay,” Kojiro said sometime later, as if he hadn’t already sat back down on the couch and was kissing Kaoru with a single minded intensity and concentration, fingers carding through his hair. He had passed his palm over where Kaoru’s head had met asphalt, even though there wasn’t even a mark remaining. Kaoru remembered that Kojiro had been most worried about that injury of them all, because of how much blood had been pouring from the head wound. Kojiro had cradled him so gently in his arms and had touched the back of his head after seeing the blood on the ground and his voice had gotten tighter, angrier, far more furious, intermingled with stress and worry.

It was still like remembering it all as though it had happened to someone else. Distant and somewhat blurred, the thoughts not quite interlocking properly, but he had felt Kojiro’s worry and protective anger as though it were a blanket lying over him, and he had felt safe in Kojiro’s arms.

He felt safe here, still. Not more safe, per say, because it was ridiculous to say that he felt more safe purely because he was Kojiro’s boyfriend or because he was within the walls of his own home, but he felt safe. The claustrophobic, anxious feeling was more remote with Kojiro to focus on, and with the knowledge that soon he would be fully able to walk on his own without having to hobble everywhere on a splint was soothing, too.

Kojiro was somewhat less calming when he found Kaoru hobbling to the bathroom in the middle of the night, entirely without his wheelchair.

“Are you an idiot?” Kojiro was definitely still half asleep, but he was shouting anyways at the sight of Kaoru on his own two feet.

“You’ve seen me walk on my splint!”

“Not  _ alone _ , holy shit,” it was somewhat amusing to watch Kojiro get tangled in the bedsheets in an attempt to get up quickly.

“It’s fine, you idiot, the doctor said I could start walking on it. The splint is getting taken off in a few days, get back into bed,” Kaoru’s head throbbed, and it wasn’t at all because of the head injury he had sustained. No, no, it was solely because of his idiot of a boyfriend.

“You’re going to hurt yourself again,” Kojiro said sullenly.

“I’m hardly putting pressure on it, shut up and lay down, I need to go to the bathroom,” Kaoru slowly hobbled his way over to the bathroom without waiting for Kojiro to get back into the bed. Predictable, Kojiro was still standing there when Kaoru walked back into the room, looking bleary eyed and irritated, a frown pulling at his mouth. “Don’t help me,” Kaoru snapped as Kojiro stepped towards him to support him. “What are you going to do when I get all of this taken off, hover around me constantly?”

“No,” Kojiro watched him closely as he got back into the bed and pulled the covers on, and they glared at each other for several moments, before Kojiro sighed and rubbed his eyes, relenting. “Sorry, it just surprised me.”

“Trust me, stupid.”

“If I trusted you at your word you wouldn’t have had help for the past month.”

“Carla would’ve helped me.”

“Yeah, because your robot would’ve helped you bathe,” Kojiro was saying it primarily to irritate him, though utterly without heat as he curled underneath the blankets too, laying on his side to look at Kaoru in the darkness.

“She’s an AI, you moron, not a robot.”

“You’ve installed Carla into every appliance you own, I think that makes her a robot.”

“Being installed into electronic appliances doesn’t make artificial intelligence a robot, what the hell do you call the AI on your phone?”

A pause. “A robot.”

Kaoru laughed, he couldn’t help it, and was pleased to find that his ribs barely hurt beneath the strain of laughter. So close. So close. “You’re an idiot.”

“ _ Your _ idiot.”

“Unfortunately.”

“So cruel.”

He dreamed of flying and awoke to find Kojiro already awake, reading a book, combing his fingers through the end of Kaoru’s hair. Kaoru watched him for a few minutes, aware that Kojiro was aware that he had awoken, but they stayed in this moment of quiet as Kaoru absently wiggled his toes and bent his knee and moved his arm slowly. Slowly. Almost absent of pain, after all.

“One more day,” Kojiro said, struggling to turn a page with one hand as he dragged his nails gently against Kaoru’s scalp.

Kaoru took his hand in his and kissed the base of his hand and then his wrist. Kojiro looked at him, then, gaze heavy and dark and adoring, and Kaoru bit his wrist briefly, trying to hide his smile. Failing, of the way that Kojiro started to smile was anything to go by.

“One more day.”

Kojiro went with him to the appointment to get his splint taken off, because of course he did. He had to remain in the waiting room, which is where Kaoru would have preferred him to be whether or not Kojiro was allowed into the room, and they had walked there. Or, mostly walked there. Kaoru had hobbled more than anything, using a crutch beneath one arm, but he thought that he would be able to put the entirety of his weight on his foot soon. It was strange to, with the splint and wrappings on, but when he did lean his weight on it there was no pain, and there wasn’t much pain left in his wrist, either.

It was reassuring, if nothing else.

“You look like you’ve healed remarkably, Sakurayashiki,” the doctor said, sounding pleased.

“No excessive physical activity for a month,” Kaoru parrotted instead of impatiently asking the physician or his nurse to take the damn splint off. But his impatience had bled through his voice, apparently, because the doctor laughed before leaning out of the room to request that the nurse grab a pair of shears.

It was quicker than he had thought to get his arm and leg unwrapped and the splint peeled away from his limbs and he had a moment to simply stare at his skin. He had always been naturally pale, much to the delight of Kojiro considering that Kaoru had always burned far more easily than him, resulting in his shoulders and nose turning bright red, making perfect targets for Kojiro to smack in passing to get a rise out of him when they were teenagers. However, a month without any sunlight whatsoever meant that he effectively had a tan line, regardless of the fact that he rarely got much sunlight at all, and his skin was even paler than he remembered. Paler and visibly weaker, too, and he could feel the difference as he flexed his wrist and rolled his ankle slowly, testing the limits of his motion and standing up, feeling slightly off balance from the difference in strength but god. He was standing on his feet, entirely independent, and he could  _ walk _ with his own strength.

Kaoru was aware that he should listen to what the doctor was saying, at least the warnings that he was giving him regarding physical activity and still taking it easy, regardless of whether or not Kaoru had gotten the splints taken off, because he was significantly weaker than he had been before and it would take time for him to regain strength, but those were all things that Kaoru was aware of. He had been acutely aware of them throughout his injury and still there was anxiety telling him that he would be unable to return to his former strength,  _ but he could walk again. _

And if he could walk again, he could skate again.

He thanked the doctor distractedly and when he walked back out into the waiting room again, Kojiro was waiting for him in the precise place that he had waited for him last tie that they were here, and Kojiro gave him that same grin, and Kaoru felt something just behind his heart expand. Kojiro’s grin widened as Kaoru walked towards him, and he could hear Kojiro saying goodbye to the doctor as they walked outside of the clinic, and Kojiro bumped their shoulders together gently.

“Feeling okay?” Kojiro said quietly as they exited onto the street, and Kaoru shaded his eyes briefly with his hand. With his  _ right _ hand.

“Weak,” Kaoru opted for honesty as opposed to anything else, and felt Kojiro press his hand briefly against his lower back. “Hand it over,” Kaoru said, holding his hand out to take the skateboard that Kojiro had kept tucked beneath his arm.

“You sure about this? You just got the splint taken off,” Kojiro handed over his skateboard anyways, though Kaoru didn’t set it to ground just yet. “I still say you should wait for a week.”

“I know what you said,” Kaoru cut through an alleyway, a well worn shortcut to the skatepark that they had been using for years, “I just don’t care.”

“Stubborn,” Kojiro said, but there was deep affection in his voice, “I’m guessing the doctor told you to take it easy.”

“I don’t have splints on anymore, do I? And I’ve refrained from excessive and strenuous physical activity for a month. It’s not like I’m going to a  _ nollie flip _ , idiot, stop worrying so much.”

Kojiro grabbed his waist and turned him and Kaoru relished that he could be subject to such sudden movement before he was being kissed, too, and he felt the solidity of Kojiro’s jaw beneath his right palm. It felt strange and foreign after everything had been muted by the layers upon layers of fabric and cotton, but Kaoru was thrilled that he could feel the traces of Kojiro’s stubble against his palm, and he curved his body against Kojiro’s, kissing him back thoroughly in the middle of this alley.

“I always worry about you,” Kojiro said against his mouth, expression practically solemn but still amused, despite himself.

“Like a nursemaid,” Kaoru said, purely to see Kojiro get briefly irritated, before kissing him again and slipping out of his grasp, continuing on his way. Kojiro followed, grumbling to himself, though Kaoru caught snatches of him saying he was stubborn, an idiot, going to get himself hurt, and an asshole, and Kaoru couldn’t help but smile to himself.

They continued to make their way towards the skatepark. It was still early morning, and Kaoru could feel his heart thumping in his chest, his awareness not because of acute anxiety, but because of the excitement that was thrumming through his veins. It was the way that he had always felt about skateboarding, this mounting exhilaration and preparedness to feel the pavement rolling beneath his feet and the wind against his face and the adrenaline beginning to engulf him as he picked up more and more speed.

Nothing could equate to this. Not calligraphy or coding or crocheting: skateboarding was part of his blood, and Kaoru was as much of an idiot as Kojiro and the other idiotic skateboarders who returned to this sport again and again and again, regardless of the fact that it could get them nothing but adrenaline rushes and injuries. There was nothing else that he had dreamed of again and again, that he had yearned for quite so harshly over the past month.

Well, there was Kojiro, but that had been easy enough to solve.

His board came alive beneath his hands as the skatepark came into view and he was tempted to break into a run, but Kojiro’s sharp look and his own impatience and desire to get onto his board without getting a ridiculous lecture kept him walking, albeit faster than before.

Where he would normally jump the fence, he walked around properly, and the moment that his feet landed on the grey asphalt he dropped his board and landed on it, pushing off in one fluid motion. Or, what would’ve been one fluid motion, if it weren’t for the fact that with his right leg being weaker than he was used to, he wavered strangely from the lack of momentum, threatening to fall. Threatening and not outright falling, of course, because Kojiro was there in seconds, an arm around his waist, clutching him tight to his body.

“Jeez,” Kojiro sighed.

“I’ll compensate, now let go,” Kaoru pushed at Kojiro’s chest, and was released reluctantly, and when he stepped onto his board he took off properly this time, and could feel an immense weight lifting from his chest as the wind started to whip his hair, and he avoided the bowl but pushed off the ground and tilted his head back, gazing at the light blue sky, and felt, at last: freedom.

Skateboarding and Kojiro. Kojiro, who had caught up to him easily and was smiling at him, traces of worry still on his face, but being overridden by such a fond, ridiculous look that Kaoru wanted to kiss him again. Later, he would. Later, he could, and he would kiss him again and again and again until they were both breathless, reveling in the fact that finally Kaoru had been unwrapped and could taste true freedom again.

The chains were snapped, the shackles shed, the cage torn apart. Kaoru flew again.

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/widowgast) and [tumblr](http://nydorins.tumblr.com/).


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